AWS DevOps Engineer Professional (DOP-C02) Exam Guide

The AWS DevOps Engineer Professional validates your ability to provision, operate, and manage distributed application systems on AWS using DevOps practices. It's the highest-level DevOps certification from AWS.

Exam Overview

Detail	Value
Exam Code	DOP-C02
Questions	75 (multiple choice + multiple response)
Length	180 minutes
Passing Score	750 (on a scale of 100-1000)
Price	~$300 USD
Prerequisite	AWS Associate-level cert recommended

Domain Breakdown

Domain	Weight
SDLC Automation	22%
Configuration Management and IaC	17%
Monitoring and Logging	15%
Policies and Standards Automation	14%
Incident and Event Response	16%
High Availability, Fault Tolerance, DR	16%

Key Topics

SDLC Automation

CodeCommit — Git repositories, branching strategies, approval rules
CodeBuild — Build environments, buildspec.yaml, caching, VPC support
CodeDeploy — Deployment configurations (AllAtOnce, HalfAtATime, Canary, Linear), AppSpec, hooks
CodePipeline — Pipeline structure, stages, actions, artifacts, cross-region/account
CodeStar — Unified CI/CD dashboard
CI/CD best practices — Automated testing, security scanning, approval gates, rollback

Configuration Management and IaC

CloudFormation — Templates, stacks, stack sets, drift detection, change sets, nested stacks, macros
Systems Manager — Parameter Store, Run Command, State Manager, Automation, Patch Manager, SSM Agent
OpsWorks — Chef/Puppet managed instances (legacy)
Elastic Beanstalk — Environment configurations, platform updates, blue/green deployments

Monitoring and Logging

CloudWatch — Metrics, alarms, dashboards, logs, Logs Insights, Contributor Insights
CloudTrail — Management and data events, trails, organization trails, Insights
X-Ray — Service maps, traces, segments, annotations, sampling rules
Config — Rules, remediation, conformance packs, configuration history
Health — Service Health Dashboard, Personal Health Dashboard, events

Policies and Standards Automation

IAM — Permission boundaries, service control policies (SCPs), policy conditions
Service Catalog — Product portfolios, launch constraints, stack assignments
Config Pack — Compliance packs for industry standards
Backup — Backup plans, resource assignments, vaults, policies

Incident and Event Response

EventBridge — Event bus, rules, targets, scheduler, Pipes
Lambda — Event-driven functions, reserved concurrency, destinations, versions
Step Functions — Workflows, standard vs express, error handling, callbacks
SQS/SNS — Queue types, DLQ, visibility timeout, fan-out patterns
Automation — SSM Automation runbooks, self-healing, auto-remediation

High Availability, Fault Tolerance, and DR

Route 53 — Routing policies, health checks, DNS failover
ELB — Cross-zone LB, connection draining, stickiness, target group health
Auto Scaling — Lifecycle hooks, scaling policies, cooldown, mixed instances
RDS — Multi-AZ, read replicas, cross-region replication, Aurora
Global Accelerator — Anycast IPs, endpoint groups, traffic dials
DR Strategies — Backup/restore, pilot light, warm standby, multi-site active-active

Key Services to Master

Service	What it does	Exam focus
CodePipeline	CI/CD orchestration	Pipeline structure, cross-account actions, approval gates
CloudFormation	IaC deployment	StackSets, drift detection, change sets, macros
Systems Manager	Operations management	Parameter Store, Automation, Patch Manager
EventBridge	Event-driven architecture	Event buses, rules, targets, scheduling
CloudWatch	Monitoring and observability	Metrics, logs, alarms, dashboards, Insights
X-Ray	Distributed tracing	Service maps, traces, sampling
Auto Scaling	Compute scaling	Lifecycle hooks, mixed instances, predictive scaling

Sample Automation Pattern

# CodePipeline CI/CD with approval
Pipeline:
  - Source (CodeCommit/GitHub)
  - Build (CodeBuild - test + security scan)
  - DeployToStaging (CodeDeploy - linear 10% every 5 min)
  - Approval (Manual - SNS notification)
  - DeployToProd (CodeDeploy - canary 10% for 30 min)
  - SmokeTest (CodeBuild + CloudWatch Synthetics canary)
  - Rollback if failed (CodePipeline rollback action)

Study Tips

Master CloudFormation — StackSets, drift detection, nested stacks, macros, and change sets are heavily tested
Know CodePipeline deeply — Cross-account pipelines, artifact stores, and action providers
Understand Systems Manager — Parameter Store (tiered pricing, policies), Automation runbooks
Learn EventBridge — Event buses (default, custom, cross-account), Pipes, Scheduler
Practice blue/green and canary deployments — CodeDeploy, Beanstalk, ECS rolling updates
Know DR strategies — RTO/RPO, pilot light vs warm standby vs multi-site

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AWS DevOps Engineer Professional Exam Guide (DOP-C02)